Frankenstein
1818 - Doctor Victor Frankenstein creates his monster in Ingolstadt, Germany. Seeing how horrible he is, he flees in fear. The monster spends almost a year observing the De Lacey family in a cottage outside Ingolstadt, learning to speak. He reads Milton's Paradise Lost, Plutatch's Lives, and Goethe's the Sorrows of Werter. He attempts to present himself to the De Laceys but is driven off.
1820 - Frankenstein's Monster confronts him in Geneva, demanding that he make him a Bride, lest he be alone forever.
1822 - Frankenstein's Monster witnesses him destroying the Bride, condemning the monster to be alone forever. He kills Victor's traveling companion Henry, leaving him imprisoned in Ireland, and then kills his new wife Elizabeth on their honeymoon. Victor's father's heart gives out from the strain, leaving Victor to go mad with grief and swear revenge.
1825 - Frankenstein's Monster is tracked into the artic by Victor Frankenstein. He kills the doctor and escapes with the body, set adrift on an artic ice floe.
1862 - Frankenstein's Monster encounters the Sheedan Empire Time-Seeds, and fights off their invasion with his future-self.
1866 - Frankenstein's Monster befriends a young Lady Angela in Belgium who makes his steam-gun. He takes his creator's name.
1886 - Frankenstein stops Mr. Hyde's rampage in Paris.
1876 - Frankenstein and The Bride finally reconnect while traveling in Southern India. She rejects the idea that she was built to be his.
1898 - Frankenstein fights the "Martian" invasion of England. When Lady Angela is killed, he steals a Martian dropship and goes to their planet, beginning his genocide.
1901 - Frankenstein fires himself back to Earth using a Martian Invasion Cannon.
1904 - Frankenstein destroys the castle of the returning Count Dracula.
1911 - Frankenstein wields the sword of the Archangel Michael against the Maggot King, and is buried under London.
1932 - Frankenstein is recovered by S.H.A.D.E. and becomes their operative. He reconnects with The Bride who is also an operative, but refuses to work with him.
1939 - Frankenstein becomes the leader of the S.H.A.D.E. wartime assault team, the Creature Commandos.
1945 - the Creature Commandos join the final push into Berlin. they discover Vandal Savage's attempt to clone a new body for Hitler, initiating the Secret War. He & The Bride finally become intimate when she joins the Commandos.
1947 - Frankenstein is lost in the Atlantic during the final mission to kill Hitler's Brain.
18 years ago - Frankenstein is recovered by the DEO, who commission him to battle his old employers, S.H.A.D.E.
16 years ago - Frankenstein discovers that The Bride is still alive and still a S.H.A.D.E. operative. She almost kills him.
14 years ago - Frankenstein & Bones are stripped of their positions with the DEO by Amanda Waller, made to instead work with Argus as part of the new Freedom Fighters.
10 years ago - Frankenstein & The Bride discover that their son was gestated by S.H.A.D.E. and grown into an undead biological weapon. They must work together with the Freedom Fighters to find and destroy their son.
8 years ago - Frankenstein battles the Sheedan Empire and their Time-Seeds with his past-self.
6 years ago - Frankenstein becomes a DEO operative when Director Bones moves the Freedom Fighters under their control. He meets Dee Tyler.
4 years ago - Frankenstein is captured by Van Helsing and his werewolf brethren to use as a weapon against the returning Count Dracula and is saved by Dee Tyler. She is almost mind-controlled to become Dracula’s bride, but is protected by Frank.
The actual character from the original novel is obviously in the public domain, but the classic Universal version of the character with his trademark neck-bolts is copyrighted by Universal Pictures. This obviously didn't stop many depictions of the character from looking practically identical to the iconic Boris Karloff character but with small alterations to avoid copyright infringement. Usually they simply move the bolts from the neck to the temples. DC wasn't alone in doing this; comics depicting variations on the original monster were rampant.
If that was all that was going on with the current Frankenstein as depicted in modern DC, he would still be a very cool character. Just by virtue of our love of building out an extended timeline, we would almost definitely be including him. What we actually have here is a completely lunatic collection of conceptual influences mixed into a character that is just dripping with personality and innovation. He becomes someone we can't WAIT to include.
If that was all that was going on with the current Frankenstein as depicted in modern DC, he would still be a very cool character. Just by virtue of our love of building out an extended timeline, we would almost definitely be including him. What we actually have here is a completely lunatic collection of conceptual influences mixed into a character that is just dripping with personality and innovation. He becomes someone we can't WAIT to include.
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Our Frankenstein StoryFrankenstein's monster has been a part of DC's universe for a long time, dating all the way back to Detective Comics #138 in 1948. There are references to him peppered across DC history, but this particular take on Frankenstein, the one that turned him into a permanent cast member of DC's world of Superheroes, happened in 2006, in Grant Morrison's deliberately weird Metaseries Seven Soldiers of Victory. He's one of the completely disconnected heroes having their own story in their own miniseries, but along the way is reimagined with a surreal blend of magic and steampunk, making him a time-lost immortal warrior wielding the sword of an archangel and battling civilization-harvesting spider-fairy-scorpions from the future. This four-issue miniseries was drawn by Doug Mahnke, and while Frankenstein would go on to show up in quite a few other places including the flashpoint miniseries Frankenstein and the Creature Commandos and the New 52 ongoing series Frankenstein Agent of S.H.A.D.E., I really don't think he's ever looked better or more unhinged.
Frankenstein has even made a recent appearance in the very good animated series Creature Commandos, although they came up with a completely different characterization for him that sacrifices a lot of what makes him cool in favor of instead setting up the Bride to be the center of attention. Nothing wrong with that, but we're going to focus on the comic version of both characters. |
Our Frankenstein StoryPart of what makes Frankenstein so much fun is that his adventures are so completely insane while still keeping one foot firmly planted in his literary background. We've deliberately kept to the version of the character as featured in the original novel, using the original publication date to begin his story. We've peppered his timeline with references to other great works of early science fiction. He battles Mr. Hyde in France, and the 'Martian" Invasion from War of the Worlds. Obviously, we already know what Martians look like thanks to a certain Justice League mainstay, but there's no reason another invading species couldn't have populated the planet after the fall of J'onn's people and attacked Earth at the turn of the century. To really push this story, we've actually had Frankenstein lose the one person who treated him like an equal in that attack, so he launches himself to the surface of Mars and commits wholesale genocide on the invading Martians. This is a character that encourages this sort of thing.
We've incorporated a little bit of Morrison's Sheedan Empire; time travel is obviously something we're avoiding, but a quick jaunt to meet his past self in a contained story won't hurt anything. His time with the Creature Commandos, S.H.A.D.E. and the modern Freedom Fighters all fit well with the character, and give us something to build on to bring this wildly innovative character further into the regular DC universe. Plus, if there was ever a character that deserves to fight Hitler's Brain, it's Frankenstein. |
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